The Minister for the presidency, Milly Babirye Babalanda has lauded the Manifesto Implementation Unit (MIU) under Willis Bashaasha for popularizing the NRM Manifesto 2021-26.
Babalanda gave the compliment while officially opening a five -day manifesto tracking and validation retreat for manifesto key stakeholders from the West Nile Region.
The retreat commenced on Monday November 20, 2023 and will end on Friday November 24, 2023 at the National Leadership Institute (NALI) in Kyankwanzi.
While delivering her speech to participants who included the core local government leaders from West Nile (RDCs/RCCs, municipality mayors, district LC5 Chairpersons, NRM chairpersons and chief administrative officers), Babalanda highlighted the importance of the manifesto as a social contract which details government’s service delivery commitments to the Ugandan citizens who gave it the mandate to lead them and steer the country to socioeconomic development.
The minister noted that since every contract is entered into by two parties, it is always imperative to enforce effective communication between the party enforcing the contract and the beneficiary of the same.
In this regard, Babalanda hailed Willis Bashaasha, the MIU director for ensuring that Ugandans are updated about what government is doing for them as well as the progress of the manifesto commitments.
“I have been following your work at the MIU and I can confidently state without contradiction that you have done a tremendous job. The manifesto is now very popular because you have popularized it both to the general public and within the government MDAs through the various initiatives. I always see you on TVs and other media platforms speaking about the manifesto and its progress, which has helped to make it a very strong brand for the NRM government,” the minister said.
Manifesto progress
Babalanda revealed that due to effective manifesto tracking and validation, it is now possible to scientifically quantify the extent of implantation of government programs, which then helps the government to engage the right gears to improve service delivery.
The minister noted that for instance, statistics provided by the MIU show that manifesto implementation stands at 84% within the last 3 years of the political term, with 20% commitments fully fulfilled while 64% are ongoing and on track to be completed before the term elapses.
Meanwhile, only 16% of commitments remain in the ‘red line’, awaiting to be started due to various challenges including inadequate funds as well as distortions caused by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and other pressures.
Babalanda expressed optimism that this retreat will further entrench implementation of the manifesto as it gives opportunity to the grassroots implementers to interface and compare notes with key implementation ministries, departments and agencies whose officials have been lined up to offer updates on key information pertaining to projects lined up for West Nile region during the course of the retreat.
She thus urged the west Nile region leaders to use the information attained during the retreat to effectively communicate the manifesto commitments to the masses, and also increase monitoring to ensure proper implementation of ongoing and pending commitments.
“As local government leaders you play a big role as front line service delivery drivers. Our expectation is that you ensure provision of quality education, quality health care, provision of water and energy while emphasizing proper and sustainable use of the resources availed. It is therefore important to meet in such forum in a retreat as a way of strengthening the monitoring and coordination of the implementation in order to achieve the targets of the Manifesto 2021-2026,” she said.
She specifically emphasized the need to follow up on the key poverty alleviation programmes like the parish development model to ensure their smooth implementation so as to empower the citizens socioeconomically.
She also cautioned the implementation stakeholders to guard against manifesto implementation bottlenecks most especially corruption.
The Manifesto Implementation Unit director, Willis Bashaasha is credited for creating impact through his works by popularising the unit under office of the president.
This has helped the unit gain strong brand equity across ministries, departments and agencies with many government technocrats now referring to Bashaasha with the moniker, Mr. Manifesto.
He has transformed the unit by emphasizing manifesto monitoring based on scientific approaches such as collecting and analyzing data on government projects based on modern statistical models.
This job is done by highly qualified and experienced economists who do on-spot field visits to various project sites.
The information gathered is then analyzed and interpreted to the various stakeholders through various forums including the annual manifesto week where ministries, departments and agencies present to Ugandans what they have done so far and region-specific validation retreats where grassroots implementation stakeholders meet with the MDAs and compare notes while building critical synergies fir manifesto monitoring and implementation.
